Sport fishing is typically conducted by attaching a bait or lure to the end of a fishing line and deploying it in the water at a location where the fish sought are expected to be. Different fish often respond to different baits, and for reasons not well understood, even the same kind of fish frequently demonstrate different bait preferences, depending upon factors such as the time of day, weather conditions, and other variables. Because of the unpredictability of such preferences, successful fisherman have found it necessary to carry with them lures and baits in a variety of sizes, shapes, colors, and the like. Commonly, these are carried in "tackle" boxes of a type divided into small compartments in which individual lures and other fishing paraphernalia are placed. While fishing accessories of the type described can be stored in tackle boxes, unfortunately, the boxes have a rigid shape and must be opened in a greatly expanded configuration in order to afford access to their contents. For this reason, the boxes can only be placed in a relatively unencumbered, open spaces. This greatly limits their ability to be stored in confined quarters, for example in a boat, where locations that avoid interference with the free movement of the fishermen, while at the same time allowing free access to the tackle in the box, are usually limited. Such tackle boxes also have a tendency to expose the metallic parts of lures carried in them to the corroding influence of water splashed into the box. A further disadvantage is that the materials from which the boxes are made are often metallic, and these are inclined to mar the high luster paints usually found on the surfaces of the lures.
In order to avoid the problems described, "soft-pack" tackle containers have been proposed, for instance, those described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,691,469. The container therein described consists of rows of overlapping compartments fastened to nylon fabric fitted with velcro strips, the latter allowing the containers to be rolled up and secured when not in use. As particularly explained in the patent, the container is designed to be unrolled and placed upon a horizontal surface, for instance the floor of a boat, when access to the contained lures is required. While the container pack of the Patent provides certain advantages over the tackle boxes described, it also exhibits certain serious drawbacks. For example, the capacity of the container is unexpandable, being limited to the number of lures that can be inserted in the pockets provided in the pack. Furthermore, the multi-compartmented pockets taught are both complex and overlapping, making retrievals of the lures from the overlapped pockets awkward and inconvenient. In addition, the necessity of spreading the pack out over a flat surface, at least in the case of the bottom of a boat, frequently results in creating an obstacle which must be avoided, if damage to the lures occurring from stepping on the pack is to be avoided. Also, the velcro strips employed in connection with the pack lose their fastening ability with the passage of time, making the strips less able to hold the pockets in their folded position, and to secure the pack in a rolled configuration.